Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Book Review: 'Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe' by Mario Livio

How and why the blunders
described in this book “have all, some way or another, acted as catalysts for
impressive breakthroughs”

Pierre-Simon Laplace
(1749-1827) was a French astronomer and mathematician, widely viewed today as
one of the greatest scientists of all time. What intrigues me most about him
are his mistakes from which he and others learned valuable lessons. There is a
brief reference to him in Brilliant Blunders (on Page 74) as Mario Livio
discusses research by William Thomas (Lord Kelvin): To calculate the Sun’s age,
“he borrowed elements from theories for the formulation of the solar system
proposed by the French physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace and the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant.” Livio’s purpose in the book is to cite various
“momentous blunders in a wide range of disciplines” that proved “brilliant”
because they helped to advance substantially the progress of scientific
knowledge. As Livio explains, “I hope to demonstrate that the road to discovery
and innovation can be constructed even through the unlikely path of blunders
made by Lord Kelvin as well as by Charles Darwin, Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle,
and Albert Einstein.

What we have in this
immensely entertaining as well as informative book is a rigorous examination of
various “colossal mistakes by great scientists that changed our understanding
of life and the universe…As I hope to show, the analysis of these blunders
forms a living body of knowledge that is not only captivating in its own right
but also can guide actions in domains ranging from scientific practices to
ethical behavior. The second reason is simple: The topics of life, of the
Earth, and of the universe have intrigued humans — not just scientists — since
the dawn of civilization, and have inspired tireless quests to uncover their
origins and out past.”

For example, consider
these: Darwin’s blunder was in not realizing the full implications of a
particular hypothesis describing evolution and natural selection; Kelvin
blundered by ignoring unforeseen possibilities; Pauling’s blunder was the
result of overconfidence bred by previous success; Hoyle erred in his obstinate
advocacy of dissent from mainstream science; and Einstein failed because of a
misguided sense of what constitutes simplicity. Livio discusses each of these
within their historical as well as scientific context. All have, in one way or
another, “acted as catalysts for impressive breakthroughs – hence their
description as ‘brilliant blunders.’ They served as agents that lifted the fog
through which science was progressing, in its usual succession of small steps
occasionally punctuated by quantum leaps.”

These are among the dozens
of passages that caught my eye, also listed to indicate the scope of Livio’s
coverage.

o Natural Selection (Pages
26-36)

o Darwin’s Blunder and the
Seeds of Genetics (41-44)

o The Earth and Life Gain a
History (64-67)

o Global Cooling (67-79)

o On the Feeling of Knowing
(96-102)

o Life’s Blueprint
(114-120)

o The Triple Helix
(131-135)

o Anatomy of a [Pauling’s]
Blunder (137-144)

o And God Said, `Let There
Be Hoyle’ (169-183)

o Cosmic Expansion: Lost
(in Translation) and Found (189-198)

o From the Largest to the
Smallest Scales (247-252)

o The Accelerating Universe
(252-256)

o Anthropic Reasoning
(256-264)

o Mistakes of Genius
(266-268)

The best works of
non-fiction tend to be research-driven and that is certainly true of this one,
as indicated by its abundant Notes (Pages 273-302) and comprehensive
Bibliography (303-323). When concluding his book, Mario Livio observes,
“Despite their blunders, and perhaps even [begin italics] because [end italics]
of them, the five individuals I have followed and sketched in this book have
produced not just innovations within their respective sciences but also truly
great intellectual creations. Unlike many scientific works that target only
professionals from within the same discipline as their audience, the oeuvres of
these masters have crossed the boundaries between science and general culture.
The impact of their ideas has been felt far beyond their immediate significance
for biology, geology, physics, or chemistry. In this sense, the work of Darwin,
Kelvin, Pauling, Hoyle, and Einstein comes closer in spirit to achievements in
literature, art, and music — both cut a broad swath across erudition.”

When Einstein’s
collaborator, Leopold Infeld, noted that several of Einstein’s original ideas
were antiquated if not even wrong, he added, “it is one more instance showing
how a wrong solution of a fundamental problem may be incomparably more
important than a correct solution of a trivial, uninteresting problem.” We are
well-advised to consider, also, an observation by a 12th century French monk,
Bernard of Chartres: “We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.”
That is true of those who read this book but also true of the great scientists
who are discussed in it.

Editor's note: This review was written by Robert Morris and has been published with his permission.Like what you read? Subscribe to the SFRB's free daily email notice so you can be up-to-date on our latest articles. Scroll up this page to the sign-up field on your right.